We’re asking the same question a second time in Part 2 of the question, “Is It Wrong For Christians To Join The Military?” (Read Part 1 here) Today we’re going to try to go a little further in answering this question.

We did discuss last time that going to war does not necessarily preclude the obedience to the commandment, “Love Your Neighbor As Yourself”, because God told the people of Israel to love their neighbors as themselves, but God sent those same people into war.

All right, so obviously, God can’t contradict Himself, and it’s things like this that cause people to ask the question, “Who is my neighbor?” Right? It hardly seems like an act of love to go to war and so no wonder people ask, “Who is my neighbor? Jesus said, I should love my neighbor, but then that same God, the same Jesus that told me to love my neighbor told me to go to war.” Now, Jesus isn’t telling anybody under the New Covenant to go to war because we’re not a geopolitical nation, we’re scattered throughout all the nations. This is a different kingdom that we’re in than the people who were in the kingdom in Israel, so let’s think about it a little bit more. In the Old Testament there is certainly no prohibition against joining the military. Naturally, God was commissioning armies. Under the New Covenant, you can’t find a prohibition about serving in the military. In fact, you could find some very complimentary things said about those who serve in such capacities.

We’ll look in a moment at Romans 13. But first, let’s look at a couple of other examples. John the Baptist was preaching (under the Old Covenant, granted) and there were some soldiers there who said, “What should we do to prove that we’re repenting at your preaching?” He didn’t say, “Resign your post,” or “Abandon your positions,” or “Quit the army.” He said, “Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages” (Luke 3:14). Well, that would have been a good time for John to have said, “Get out of there as fast as you can,” or “When your commission expires, don’t sign up again,” if God was generally opposed to being in the military.

Then there are people in the Bible like Cornelius, who was a Centurion, and you read about him in Acts 11. He was a Gentile. In fact, he and his household were the first Gentiles to believe in Jesus and they were the first Gentiles to whom the Holy Spirit sent an apostle—an evangelist—to go preach the gospel to. Cornelius was a Centurion, which means he was a Roman soldier over about 100 other Roman soldiers. The Bible says that he was “a devout man and one who feared God with all his household” (Acts 10:2). When Peter was preaching the Gospel the Holy Spirit fell on him. The Holy Spirit fell on this soldier! So here’s another case. That would have been a great time for Peter to say, “Now, the Holy Spirit’s not going to be doing anything for you under the New Covenant as a soldier, so you need to get out of that position.” No, you don’t find that happening, and there are more examples we could cite, as far as the soldiering aspect goes.

We have Jesus, for example, healing a Centurion’s servant. Again, some will say, “That’s under the Old Covenant, so it was okay back then, it’s not okay now.” But, again, I’ve already pointed out in our last Little Lesson that the command to love your neighbor as yourself was given under the Old Covenant, yet God sent some of the people under the Old Covenant to war.

If in fact the greatest deterrent to war is a standing army that’s ready and prepared and able to get victory, then it’s a very honorable thing to be in that position. Along those lines now let me take you to Romans 13, and this is Paul writing about government, in general. Of course, one of the things that governments do is establish various branches of the military to protect their citizenry.

Take note of what Paul says in Romans 13: “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities.” And here’s why: “For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.” He doesn’t stop there. “Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.”

So we’re supposed to obey the governing authorities. Human government was instituted by God. Government is absolutely necessary and it’s really a huge blessing, although, lots of us complain about our governments. But if you put all of the good that governments do on the side of some of the bad things they might do, the good is immense. They organize people for a common cause to benefit everybody. Getting a standing army ready and prepared to defend the citizenry is one of those things that governments are good at and they’re established by God to do.

Now, Paul goes on, “For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil.” That’s generally true, not always, but generally true. “Do you want to have no fear of authority?” Paul asks. “Do what is good and you will have praise from the same.” Listen to how he describes government officials and people who work for the government, “…for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God…” That’s the second time Paul has called government a minister of God.

Paul also makes a reference to government bearing the sword. In our day, the sword could be seen as those with guns and uniforms, the police, the guys who are enforcing the laws. “… an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.” That’s one of the major responsibilities of government, to resist evil and to squelch it, stop it, punish it when it arises. “Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing.”

I think there is great application here as to whether or not it’s right or wrong for Christians to be within the military. When Paul writes that those who are serving in the government are ministers of God, well, that’s every aspect of that government. It’s an extension of the authority of God.

Again, yes, there are some moral implications. If you find yourself as a Christian in the military having to go to war and it’s an immoral cause, then that requires some consideration. Again, as I’ve already mentioned to you in our last Little Lesson, a major reason for having an army, having a military, is to prevent war. Secondly, to prevent evil. Those are two good things and I say, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” There’s more that could be said, but these are Little Lessons, we’re not covering everything in great detail. But this is some food for thought. Thanks for joining me, God bless you!

(Read more on the topic of Christian Pacifism).

The post Is It Wrong for a Christian to Serve in the Military? Part 2 appeared first on David Servant.

Is it wrong for a Christian to serve in the military? Today’s question will take more than just one Little Lesson to answer because of some of the complexities of the issue. Of course, Christians wonder about this sometimes. Is it right for a Christian to be in the military, because we know that we’re supposed to love our neighbor as ourselves, and going to war against your neighbor hardly seems like an expression of love towards him. That is a valid point, but I think that we need to go a little bit deeper and think about this.

Here’s one point that we ought to consider. It’s not just under the New Covenant that God’s people are commanded to love their neighbors as themselves, but that was also true under the Old Covenant. That’s an Old Covenant law. And Jesus said under the Old Covenant that it’s the second greatest commandment. It was the second greatest commandment under the Old Covenant as well as the New Covenant.

Now, under that Old Covenant where God’s people were commanded to love their neighbors as themselves, God, at some times, commanded them to go to war. Numerous times God initiated, ordained and orchestrated wars. The Old Testament could almost be called a book of war because there are so many wars that we could read about! And God is totally involved. And so, right off the bat, I think we better be careful in saying that all war is always wrong because if we say that, then we say that God is sometimes wrong. So, let’s be careful in making those kinds of blanket statements.

There is such a thing as a just war. If it’s a war initiated by God, well, then, of course, it’s just. It has to be just, because God is just, and we can read about Him, for example, commissioning the children of Israel—the armies of Israel—to invade the land of Canaan and destroy all those people. And that was his commissioned war. That was obviously a just war.

If you dig a little bit deeper, you find out how deserving the people of Canaan were of being destroyed. God waited hundreds of years, giving those people time to repent of their depravity and their gross perversions. They just proved themselves to be irredeemable, and so He used Israel as a tool of His judgment upon them. They were doing things like throwing their living babies into fires to prove their devotion to their pagan gods, and having sexual relationships with animals, and things you just don’t want to even mention. But God, Himself, said to the people of Israel, “As you go into the land of Canaan, don’t imitate what those people are doing, because that’s the reason that I’m destroying them.”

Okay. So we’ve kind of introduced the concept of a just war. Maybe we ought to go back a little bit and just discuss the taking of a human life, and the ethics and the morality of that whole concept. We know that God is a God who is opposed to murder. One of the Ten Commandments is “Thou shalt not murder”. But, think about this. You keep reading after the Ten Commandments and God says, “The person who takes a life, he shall forfeit his life.” So that’s the institution of capital punishment, where a murderer has to give up his own life as just payment, as it were, for the life that he took. And that is just.

And so you can see that all taking of a human life is not all the same. There’s murder, and then there’s also capital punishment. Two different things altogether. One is unjust, one is just.

Now, war, obviously, as we’ve already talked about, can fall into that category. I’m not saying all wars are just, no. A lot of wars are unjust, but oftentimes in wars, there is a ‘good guy’ and there is a ‘bad guy’. There are the good guys and the bad guys. Back during World War II, Hitler was a bad guy, and the good guys went against the bad guys, and the good guys won, thankfully. War is a shame, of course. This is what we regret in all war, when innocent people are harmed. Even the soldiers could be considered innocent in a sense because they’re just following orders. Again, nobody on either side of this debate is for war.

In fact, when you think about it, the people who are against war more than anybody else are members of the military, because—unless there’s something wrong with their brains—the last thing they want to do is go to war. In fact, when they join the military, probably most of them are hoping they won’t go to war, because they could forfeit their lives. They could suffer great harm as a result of it.

So, joining the military doesn’t mean you’re pro killing other people. There’s a good chance that it means you’re really against killing other people and that, in fact, you are against evil. At least that’s true if you’re a part of an army that has basically some kind of a moral basis to it. That is, “We’re here for defense. We’re here to fight the bad guys. We’re not an army of conquest, trying to take land that doesn’t belong to us, and invade other countries. We’re trying to be on the good side.” When you think about that, there’s no greater deterrent to an invading army, or an invading nation, than a prepared and equipped army that’s ready to stand against them. Right? Right.

Remember, Jesus mentioned this in one of His examples of counting the cost of being His disciple:

“Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace” (Luke 14:31-32).

In other words, “Think about the king, who’s got 10,000 men and he’s got to go to war against a king with 20,000 men. He’s going to count the cost, and he might just sue for terms of peace because he realizes he’s outnumbered two to one.” And so, can you see that an army—a prepared, equipped, ready army—is a huge deterrent to war? And Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

So the person who enters the military in order to defend the helpless, and to do what’s right, and to stop evil and wickedness, and to defeat the bad guys, and to preserve peace and so forth, well, that’s an honorable reason to join the military, isn’t it?

Okay. Now, there is the possibility of some other moral implications coming into play with this question. We’ll talk about that in our next Little Lesson, and then we’ll stop on this subject.

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